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F 685 
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Copy I SPEECH 






HOI. JAMES e' HAMMOND, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 



ADMISSION OF K^]SrSA.S, 



y 



THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 



DELIYBEED IN THK SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAECH 4, 1868. 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED BY LEMUEL TOWEES. 
1858. 



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/ • 



KANSAS-LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 



HON. JAMES H. HAMMOND, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

ON THE 

ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 



DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 4, 1358. 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consider- 
ation the bill for the admission of the State of Kansas in the Union — 
Mr. HAMMOND said : 

Mr. President : In the debate which occurred in the early 
part of the last month, I understood the Senator from Illinois 
(Mr. Douglas) to say that the question of the reception of the 
Lecompton constitution was narrowed down to a single point. 
That point was, whether that constitution embodied the will 
of the people of Kansas. Am I correct ? 

Mr. Douglas. The Senator is correct, with this qualifica- 
tion : I could waive the irregularity and agree to the reception 
of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, 
provided I was satisfied that it was the act and deed of that 
people, and embodied their will. There are other objections ; 
but the others I could overcome, if this point were disposed 
of. 

Mr. HAMiroND. I so understood the Senator. I understood 
that if he could be satisfied that this constitution embodied 
the will of the people of Kansas, all other defects and irregu- 
laiities could be cured by the act of Congress, and that he 
himself would be willing to permit such an act to be passed. 

Now, sir, the only question is, how is that will to be ascer- 
tained, and upon that point, and that only, we shall difier. 
In my opinion the will of the people of Kansas is to be 
sought in the act of her lawful convention elected to form 
a constitution, and no where else ; and that it is unconstitu- 
tional and dangerous to seek it elsewhere. I think that the 
Senator fell into a fundamental error in his report dissenting 
from the report of the majority of the territorial commit- 



tee, -wheii lie said that the convention which framed this 
constitution was " the creatiii-e of the Territorial Legisla- 
ture ;" and from that error has probably arisen all his sub- 
sequent errors on this subject. How can it be possible that 
a convention should be the creature of a Territorial Legis- 
lature? The convention was an assembly of the people in 
their highest sovereign capacity, about to perform then- 
highest possible act of sovereignty. The Territorial Legisla- 
tui'e is a mere provisional government ; a petty corporation, 
appointed and paid by the Congress of the United States, 
without a particle of sovereign power. Shall that interfere 
with a sovereignty — inchoate, but still a sovereignty ? Why, 
Congress cannot interfere; Congress cannot confer on the 
Territorial Legislature the power to interfere. Congress is not 
sovereign. Congress has sovereign powers, but no sover- 
eignty. Congress has no power to act outside of the limita- 
tions of the Constitution ; no right to carry into effect the 
Supreme "Will of any people, and, therefore, Congress is not 
sovereign. Nor does Congress hold the sovereignty of Kan- 
sas. The sovereignty of Kansas resides, if it resides any- 
where, with the sovereign States of this Union, Tlicy have 
conferred upon Congress, among other powers, the authority 
of administering such sovereignty to their satisfaction. They 
have given Congress the power to make needful rules and regu- 
lations regarding the Territories, and they have given Congress 
power to admit a State — '•'■admH^^ not create. Under these two 
powers. Congress may first establish a provisional territorial gov- 
ernment merely for municipal purposes ; and when a State has 
grown into rightful sovereignty, when that sovereignty which 
has been kept in abeyance demands recognition, when a com- 
munity is formed there, a social compact created, a sover- 
eignty born as it were upon the soil, then Congress is gifted 
with the power to acknowledge it, and the Legislature, only 
by mere usage, oftentimes neglected, assists at the birth of it 
by passing a precedent resolution assembling a convention. 

But when that convention assembles to form a constitution, 
it assembles in the highest known capacity of a people, and 
has no superior in this Government but a State sovereignty ; 
or rather the State sovereignties of all the States alone can 
do anything with the act of that convention. Tlien if that 
convention was lawful, if there is no objection to the conven- 
tion itself, there can be no objection to the action of the con- 
vention ; and there is no power on earth that has a right to 
inquire, outside of its acts, whether the convention represent- 
ed the will of the people of Kansas or not, for a convention 
of the people is, according to the theory of our Government, 
for all the purposes for which the people elected it, The Peo- 



PLE, lona'fide, being the only way in which all tlie people can 
assemble and act together. I do not doubt that there might be 
some cases of snch gross and palpable frauds committed in 
the formation of a convention, as might autliorize Congress 
to investigate them, but I can scarcely conceive of any ; and 
and I do not think that Congress has any other power when a 
State knocks at the door for admission, but to inquire if her 
constitution is republican. That it embodies the will of her 
people must necessarily be taken for granted, if it is their 
lawful act. I am assuming, of course, that her boundaries 
are settled, and lier population sufficient. 

If what I have said be correct, then the will of the people 
of Kansas is to be found in the action of her constitutional 
convention. It is immaterial whether it is the will of a 
majority of the people c-f Kansas noiv, or not. The conven- 
tion was, or might have been, elected by a majority of the 
people of Kansas. A convention, elected in April, may well 
frau-ie a constitution that would not be agi-eeable to a major- 
ity of the people of a new State, rapidly filling up, in the 
succeeding January ; and if Legislatures are to be allowed to 
put to vote the acts of a convention, and have them an- 
nulled by a subsequent influx of immigrants, there is no final- 
ity. If you were to send back the Lecompton constitution, 
and another was to be framed, in the slow way in which we 
ds- public business in this country, before it would reach Con- 
gress and be passed, perhaps the majority would be turned the 
other way. Whenever you go outside of the regular forms of 
law and constitutions to seek for the will of the people yon 
are wandering in a wilderness — a wilderness of thorns. 

If this was a minority constitution I do not know that that 
would be an objection to it. Constitutions are made for minori- 
ties. Perhaps minorities ought to have the right to make con- 
stitutions, fjr they are administered by majorities. The Con- 
stitution of this Government was made by a minority, and as 
late as 1840 a minority had it in their hands, and could have 
altered or abolished it ; for, in 1840, six out of the twenty-six 
States of the Union held the numerical majority. 

The Senator from Illinois has, upon his view of the Lecomp- 
ton constitution and the present situation of affairs in Kansas, 
raised a cry of '* popular sovereignty.*' The Senator from 
New York (Mr, Sp:ward) yesterday made himself facetious 
about it, and called it " squatter sovereignty." There is a pop- 
ular sovereignty which is the basis of our Government, and I 
am unwilling that the Senator should have the advantage of 
confounding it with " squatter sovereignty." In all coun- 
tries and in all time, it is well understood that the numerical 
majority of the people could, if they chose, exercise the sov- 



ereignty of the country ; but for waut of intelligence, and for 
want of leaders, they hare never yet been able successfully to 
combine and form a stable, popular government. They 
have often attempted it, but it has always turned out, instead 
of a popular sovereignty, a 'populace sovereignty ; and dema- 
gogues, placing thei» selves upon the movement, have inva- 
riably led them into military despotism. 

I think that the popular sovereignty which the Senator 
from Illinois would derive from the acts of his Territorial Leg- 
islature, and from the information received from partisans 
and partisan presses, would lead us directly into jmiyulace^ 
and not popular sovereignty. Genuine popular soverign- 
ty never existed on a lirm basis except in this country. 
The first gun of the Revolution announced a new organi- 
zation of it, which was embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, developed, elaborated, and inaugurated forever in 
the Constitution of the United States. The two pillars of it 
■were Representation and the Ballot-box. In distributing 
their sovereign powers among the various Departments of the 
Government, the people retained for themselves the single 
power of the ballot-box ; and a great power it w^as. Through 
that they were able to control all the Departments of the Gov- 
ernment. It was not for the people to exercise political power 
in detail ; it was not for them to be annoyed with the cares 
of Government; but, from time to time, through the ballot- 
box, to exert their sovereign power and control the whole or- 
ganization. This is popular sovereignty, the pojndar sovereign- 
ty of a legal constitutional ballot-box ; and when spoken through 
that box, the " voice of the people," for all political purposes, 
" is the voice of God; " but when it is outside of that, it is the 
voice heard of a demon, the tocsin of the reign of terror. 

In passing I omitted to answer a question that the Sen- 
ator from Illinios has, I believe, repeatedly asked; and 
that is, what were the legal powers of the Territorial 
Legislature after the formation and adoption of the Le- 
compton constitution ? That had nothing to do with the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature, which was a provisional government al- 
most without power, ai)pointed and paid by this Government, 
The Lecompton constitution was the act of a peoi)le, and the 
sovereign act of a people. They moved in diflerent spheres 
and on different planes, and could not come in contact at all 
"without usurpation on the one part or the other. It was not 
competent for the Lecompton constitution to overturn the ter- 
ritorial government and set up a government in place of it, 
because that constitution, until acknowledged by Congress, 
was nothing ; it was not in force anywhere. It could well re- 
quire the people of Kansas to pass upon it or any portion of 



it ; it could do whatever was necessary to perfect that consti- 
tution, but nothing beyond that, until Congress had agreed 
to accept it. In the mean time the territorial government, 
always a government ad iniernm^ was entitled to exercise all 
the sway over the Territory that it ever had been entitled to. 
The error of assuming, as the Senator did, that the conven- 
tion was the creature of the territorial government, has led 
him into the difficulty and confusion of connecting these two 
governments together. Tliere is no power to govern in the 
convention until after the adoption by Congress of its consti- 
tution. 

If the Senator from Illinois, whom I regard as the Ajax 
Telamon of this debate, does not press the question of frauds, 
I shall have little or nothing to say about that. The whole 
history of Kansas is a disgusting one, from the beginning to the 
to end. I have avoided reading it as much as I could. Ilad I 
been a Senator before, I should have felt it my duty, perhaps, 
to have done so ; but not expecting to be one, I am ignorant, 
lortunately, in a great measure, of details ; and I was glad to 
hear the acknowledgment of the Senator from Illinois, since 
it excuses me from the duty of examining them. 

I hear, on tlie other side of the Chamber, a great deal said 
about "gigantic and stupendous frauds;" and the Senator from 
New York, yesterday, in portraying the character of his party 
and the opposite one, laid the whole of those frauds upon the 
pro-slavery party. To listen to him, you would have supposed 
that the regiments of immigrants recruited in the purlieus of 
the great cities of the North, and sent out, armed and equipped 
with Sharpe's rifles and bowie knives and revolvers, to con- 
quer freedom for Kansas, stood by, meek saints, innocent as 
doves, and harmless as lambs brought up to the sacrifice. 
General Lane's lambs! They remind one of the famous 
" Iwtnbi'' of Colonel Kirke, to whom they have a strong family 
resemblance. I presume that there were frauds ; and that if 
there were frauds, they were equally great on all sides ; and 
that any investigation into them on this floor, or by a commis- 
sion, would end in nothing but disgrace to tlie United States. 

But, sir, the true object of the discussion on the other side 
of the Chamber, is to agitate the question of slavery. I have 
very great doubts whether the leaders on the other side of 
the house really wish to defeat this bill. I think they would 
consider it a vastly greater victory to crush out the Demo- 
cratic party in the North, and destroy the authors of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill ; and I am not sure that they have not 
brought about this imbroglio for the very purpose. They tell 
US that year after year the majority in Kansas was beaten at 
the polls ! They have always had a majority, but they always 



♦ 8 

get beaten ! How could that be ? It does seem, from the 
most reliable sources of information, that they have a majori- 
ty, and have had a majority for some time. Why has not 
this majority come forward and taken possession of the gov- 
ernment, and made a free-State constitution and brouglit it 
here ? We should all have voted for its admission cheerfully. 
There can be but one reason : if they had brouglit, as was 
generally supposed at the time the Kansas-lSTebraska act was 
passed would be the case, a free-State constitution here, there 
would have been no difficulty among the northern Democrats ; 
they would have been sustained by their people. The state- 
ment made by some of them, as I understood, that that act 
was a good free-State act, would have been verified, and the 
northern Democratic party would have been sustained. But 
its coming here a slave State, it is hoped, will kill that party, 
and that is the reason they have refrained from going to the 
polls; that is the reason. they have refrained from making it 
a free-State when they had the power. They intend to make 
it a free-State as soon as they have eifected their purpose of de- 
stroying the Democratic party at the iSTorth, and now their chief 
object here is, to agitate slavery. For one, I am not disposed 
to discuss that question here in any abstract form. I think the 
time has gone by for that. Our minds are all made up. I 
may be willing to discuss it — and that is the way it should be 
and must be discussed — as £ij)raciical thing, as a thing that?'^, 
and is to he / and to discuss its eifect upon our political insti- 
tutions, and ascertain how long those institutions will hold to- 
gether with slavery ineradicable. 

The Senator from New York entered ver}'- fairly into this 
field yesterday. I was surprised, the other day, when he so 
openly said "the battle had been fought and won." Although 
I knew, and had k>ng known it to be true, I was surprised to 
hear him say so. I thought that he had been entrapped into 
a hasty expression by the sharp rebukes of the Senator from 
New Hampshire ; and I was glad to learn yesterday they had 
been well considered — that they meant all that I thought they 
meant ; that they meant that the South is a conquered prov- 
ince, and that the North intends to rule it. He said that it 
was their intention '•' to take this Government from unjust and 
unfaithful hands, and place it in just and faithful hands ;" that 
it was their intention to consecrate all the Territories of the 
Union to free labor ; and that, to efiect their purposes, they 
intended to reconstruct the Supreme Court. 

Yesterday, the Senator said, suppose we admit Kansas 
with the Lecompton constitution — what guarantees are thero 
that Congress will not again interfere with the aftairs of Kan- 
sas ? meaning, I suj)pose, that if she abolished slavery, what 



guarantee there was tliat Congress wonld not force it upon 
her again. So far as we of the Sonth are concerned, you 
have, at least, the guarantee of good laith that never has been 
violated. But what guarantee "liave we, when yon have this 
Government in your possession, in all its departments, even if 
we submit rpiietly to what the Senator exhorts us to submit 
to — the limitation of slavery to its present territory, and even 
to the reconstruction of the Supreme Court — that you will not 
plunder us with tarifis ; that you will not bankrupt us with 
internal improvements and bounties on your exports ; that 
yqu will not cramp us with navigation laws, and other laws 
impeding the facilities of transportation to southern produce ? 
What guarantee have we that you will not create a ncAV bank, 
and concentrate all the finances of this country at the North, 
where already, for the want of direct trade and a proper sys- 
tem of banking in the South, they are ruinously concentrated ? 
Kay, what guarantee have we that you will not emancipate 
our slaves, or, at least, make the attempt ? "We cannot rely on 
your faith Avhen you have the power. It has been always 
broken whenever pledged. 

As I am disposed to see this question settled as soon as pos- 
sible, aud am i^eriectly willing to have a final and conclusive 
settlement ncno^ after what the Senator from Is'ew York 
has said, I think it not improper that I should attempt to 
bring the North and South face to face, and see what resour- 
ces each of us might have in the contingency of separate or- 
ganizations. 

If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, 
look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. 
As large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. 
Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall 
rule the world ? With the finest soil, the most delightful cli- 
mate, whose staple productions none of those great countries 
can grow, we have three thousand miles of continental shore 
line, so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, 
when their shore lines are added, we have twleve thousand 
miles. Through the heart of our country runs the great 
Mississippi, the father of waters, into whose bosom are pour- 
ed thirty-six thousand miles of tributary streams ; and beyond 
we have the desert prairie wastes, to protect us in our rear. 
Can you hem in such a territory as that ? You talk of putting 
up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty tliousand 
square miles so situated ! IIow al)surd. 

But, in this territory lies the great valley of the Missis- 
sippi, now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged seat of 
the empire of the world. Tlie sway of that valley will be as 
great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. 



10 

We own the most of it. The most valuable part of it belongs 
to us now ; and although those who have settled above us 
are now opposed to us, another generation will tell a different 
t-ale. They are oure bj all the laws of nature ; slave-labor 
•will go over every foot of this great valley where it will be 
found profitable to use it, and some of those who may not 
use it are soon to be united with us by ench ties as will make 
US one and inseparable. The iron horse will soon be clatter- 
ing over the sunny plains of the South to bear the products 
of its upper tril.)utaries to our Atlantic ports, as it now does 
through the ice-bound North, There is the great Mississip- 
pi, a bond of union made by Nature herself. She will main- 
tain it forever. 

On this fine territory we have a population four times as 
large as that with which these colonies separated from the 
mother country, and a hundred, I m-iglit say a thousand fold 
as strong. Our population is now sixty per cent, greater 
than that of the whole United States when we entered into 
the second war of independence. It is as large as the whole 
population of the United States was ten years after the con- 
clusion of that war, and our exports are three times as great 
as those of the whole United States then. Upon our muster- 
rolls we have a million of men. In a defensive war, upon an 
emergency, every one of them would be available. At any 
time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a 
larger army than any Power of the earth can send against 
her, and an army of soldiers — men brought up on horseback, 
with guns in their hands. 

If w^e take the North, even when the two large States of 
Kansas and Minnesota shall be admitted, her territory will be 
one hundred thousand square miles less than ours. I do not 
speak of California and Oregon ; there is no antagonism be- 
tween the South and those countries, and never will be. The 
fopulation of the North is fifty per cent, greater than oui*s. 
have nothing to say in disparagement either of the soil of 
the North, or the people of the North, who are a brave, and 
energetic race, full of intellect. But they j^roduce no great 
staple that the South does not produce ; while we produce 
two or three, and those the very greatest, that she can never 
produce. As to her men, I may be allowed to say, they have 
never proved themselves to be superior to those of the South, 
either in the field or in the Senate. 

But the strength of a nation depends in a great measure 
upon its wealth, and the wealth of a nation, like that of a 
man, is to be estimated by its surplus production. You may go 
to your tnishy census books, full of falsehood and nonsense — 
they tell you, for example, that in the State of Tennessee, the 



11 

whole number of house-servante is not equal to one-lialf those 
in my own house, and such things as that. You may estimate 
what is made throughout the country from these census books, 
but it is no matter how much is made if it is all consumed. 
If a man is worth millions of dollare and consumes his income, 
is lie rich ? Is he competent to embark in any new enterprise? 
Can he build ships or railroads? And could a people in that 
condition build ships and roads or go to war ? All the enter- 
prises of peace and war depend upon the surplus productions 
of a people. They may be happy, they may be comfortable, 
they may enjoy themselves in consuming what they make ; 
but they are not rich, they are not strono-. It appears, hj 
going to the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, which 
are authentic, that last year the United States exported m round 
numbers $279,000,000 worth of domestic produce, excluding 
gold and foreign mercliandise re-exported. Of this amount 
$158,000,000 worth is the clear produce of the South ; articles 
that are not itnd cannot be made at the North. There are 
then $80,000,000 worth of ex])orts of products of the forest, 
provisions, and breadstwffs. If we assume that the South 
made but one-third of these, and I think that is a low calcula- 
tion, our exports were $185,000,000, leaving to the North less 
than $95,000,000. , 

In addition to this, we sent to the North $30,000,000 worth 
of cotton, which is not counted in the exports. We sent to 
her $7 or $8,000,000 worth of tobacco, which is not counted m 
the exports. "We sent naval stores, lumber, rice, and many 
other minor articles. There is no doubt that we sent to the 
North $40,000,000 in addition ; but suppose the amoimt to 
be $35,000,000, it will give us a surplus production of 
$220,000,000. But the recorded exports of the South now are 
greater than the whole exports of the United States m any 
year before 1856. Tliey are greater than the whole average 
exports of the United States for the last twelve years including 
the two extraordinary years of 1856 and 1857. They are 
nearly double the amount of the average exports of the twelve 
preceding years. If I am right in my calculations as to 
$220,000,000 of suri^lus produce, there is not a nation on the 
face of the earth, with any numerous population, that can 
compete with us in produce''^?^?/' cajyita. It amounts to $16 m 
per head, supposing that we have twelve miUion people. 
England with all her accumulated wealth, with her concentrated 
and educated energy, makes but sixteen-and-a-half dollars of 
surplus production per head. I have not made a calculation 
as to the North, with her $95,000,000 surplus; admitting 
that she exports as much as we do, with her eighteen millions 
of population it would be but little over twelve dollars a head. 



13 

Bnt she cannot export to us and abroad exceeding ten dollars 
a head against our sixteen dollars. I know well enough that 
the ISTorth sends to the South a vast amount of the productions 
of her industry. I take it for granted that she, at least, pays 
us in that way for the thirty or forty million dollars worth of 
cotton aud other articles we send her. I am willing to admit 
that she sends us considerably more ; but to bring her up to our 
amount of surplus production, to bring her up to $220,000,000 
a year, the South must take from her $125,000,000 ; and this, 
'4n addition to our share of the consumption of the $333,000,000 
worth introduced into the country from aljroad, and paid for 
chiefly by our own exports. The thing is absurd ; it is 
impossible ; it can never appear anywhere but in a book of 
" statistics. 

With an export of $220,000,000 under the present tariflp, the 
South organized separately would have $40,000,000 of revenue. 
"With one-fourth the 23resent tariff she would have a revenue 
adequate to all her wants, for the* South would never go to 
war ; she would never need an army or a navy, beyond a few 
garrisons on the frontiers and a few revenue cutters. It is 
commerce that breeds war. It is manufactures that require 
to be hawked abo^^t the world, that give rise to navies and 
commerce. But we have nothing to do but to take off re- 
strictions on foreign merchandise and open our ports, and the 
whole world will come to us to trade. They will be too glad 
to bring and carry for us, and we never shall dream of a 
war. Why the South has never yet had a just cause of war. 
Every time she has drawn her sword it has l)een on the point 
of honor, and that point of honor has been mainly loyalty to 
her sister colonies and sister States, who have ever since 
plundered and calumniated her. 

But if there were no other reason why we should never 
have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton ? With- 
out firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make 
war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The 
South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years 
without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was 
to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, it would 
be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that 
after three total years' abstinence she would come out stronger 
than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh 
Upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no 
cotton was furnished for three years ? I will not stop to depict 
what every one can imagine, but this is certain : England 
would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world 
with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton, 
No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. 



Until lately the Bank of England was king, but she tried to 
put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton 
crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been 
conquered. Who can doubt tliat has looked at recent events, 
that cotton is supreme ? "When the abuse of credit had de- 
stroyed credit and annihilated confidence, when thousands of 
the strongest commercial houses in the world were coming 
down, and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed property 
evaporating in thin air, when you came to a dead lock, and 
revolutions were threatened, what brought you up? Fortu- 
nately for you it was the commencement of the cotton season, 
and we have poured in upon you one million six hundred 
thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to save you from de- 
struction. That cotton, but for the bursting of your specula- 
tive bubbles in the I^orth, which produced the whole of this 
convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000. We have 
sold it for $65,000,000, and saved you. Thirty-five million 
dollars we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into the 
charity box for your magnificent financiers, your "cotton 
lords," your "merchant princes." 

But sir, the greatest strength of the South arises from the 
harmony of her political and social institutions. This harmo- 
ny gives her a frame of society, the best in the world, and an 
extent of political freedom, combined with entire security, 
such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the 
earth. Society precedes government; creates it, and ought 
to control it; but as far as we can look back in historic times 
we find the case difl'erent : for government is no sooner created 
than it becomes too strong for society, and shapes and moulds, 
as well as controls it. In later centuries the progress of civil- 
ization and of intelligence has made the divergence so great 
as to produce civil wars and revolutions ; and it is nothing 
now but the want of harmony between governments and 
societies which occasions all the uneasiness and trouble and 
terror that we see abroad. It was this that brought on the 
American Bevolution. We threw off a Government not 
adapted to our social system, and made one for ourselves. 
The question is how far have we succeeded ? The South so 
far as that is concerned, is satisfied, harmonious, and prosper- 
ous. 

In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial 
duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class re- 
quiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its 
requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must 
have, or you would not have that other class which leads pro- 
gress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes tlie verj 
mud-siU of society and of political government; and you 



14 

miglit as well attempt to bnild a house in the air, as to build 
either the one or tlie other, except on this mud-sill. Fortu- 
nately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose 
to her hand. A race inferior to her own, but eminently quali- 
fied in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand 
the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for 
our purpose, and call them slaves. "We found them slaves by 
the " common consent of mankind," which, according to 
Cicero, "Z&k naturce est.''^ The highest proof of what is 
Nature's law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet ; it is a 
word discarded now by "ears polite;"! will not characterize 
that class at the North with that term ; but you have it ; it is 
there ; it is everywhere ; it is eternal. 

The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole 
world had abolished slavery. Aye, the 7iame, but not the 
thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish that. 
God only can do it when he repeals the Jiat^ ^ the poor ye 
always have with you ;" for tlie man who lives by daily labor, 
and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in 
the market, and take the best he can get for it ; in short, your 
whole class of manual laborers and " operatives," as you call 
them, are essentially slaves. The diiference between us is, 
that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated ; there 
is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among 
our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are 
hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, 
which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any 
hour in any street in any of your large towns. Why, you 
meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the 
city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the 
whole South. We do not think that whites should be slaves 
either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another 
and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them ia 
an elevation. Tliey are elevated from the condition in which 
God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that 
race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with 
"the slaves of the South. They are happy, cqntent, unaspiring, 
and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give 
us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your 
own race ; you are brothers of one blood. Tliey are your equals 
in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their 
degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We give them no politi- 
cal power. Yours do vote, and being the majority, they are 
the depositaries of all your political power. If they knew the 
tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than " an 
army with banners," and could combine, where woiild you be? 
Your society would be reconstructed, your government over- 
thrown, your property divided, not as they nave mistakenljr 



15 

attempted to initiate such proceedings by meeting in parks, 
with arms in their hands, bnt by the quiet process of the 
ballot-box. You have been making war upon us to our very 
hearthstones. How would you like for us to send lecturers 
and agitators North, to teach these people this, to aid in cona- 
bining, and to lead them ? 

Mr. "Wilson and otliers. Send them along. 

Mr. Hammond. You say send them along. There is no 
need of that. Your people are awaking. They are coming 
here. They are thundering at our doors for homesteads, one 
hundred and sixty acres of land for nothing, and Southern 
Senators are supporting them. Nay, they are assembling, as I 
have said, with arms in their hands, and demanding work at 
$1,000 a year for six hours a day. Have you heard that the 
ghosts of Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in the streets 
of your great cities ? That the inquisition is at liand ? There 
is afloat a fearful rumor that there have been consultations for 
Vigilance Committees. You knoAv what that means. 

Transient and temporary causes have thus far been your pre- 
servation. The great West has been open to your surplus pop-' 
nlation, and your hordes of semi-barbarian immigrants, who 
are crowding in year by year. They make a great movement, 
and you call it progress. Whither ? It is progress ; but it is 
progress towards Vigilance Committees. The South have sus- 
tained you in a great measure. You are our factors. Yon 
bring and carry for ue. One hundred and fifty million dol- 
lars of our money passes annually through your hands. Much 
of it sticks ; all of it assists to keep your machinery together 
and in motion. Suppose we were to discharge you ; suppose 
we were to take our business out of your hands ; we should con- 
sign you to anarchy and poverty. You complain of the rule of 
the South : that has been another cause that has preserved you. 
We have kept the Government conservative to the great pur- 
poses of Government. We have placed her, and kept her, up- 
on the Constitution ; and that has been the cause of your peace 
and prosperity. The Senator from New York says that that is 
about to be at an end ; that you intend to take the Government 
from us ; that it will pass from our hands. Perhaps what he 
says is true ; it may be ; bnt do not forget — it can never be 
forgotten — it is written on the brightest page of human his- 
tory^ — that we, the slaveholders of the South, took our coun- 
try in her infancy, and, after ruling her for sixty out of the 
seventy years of her existence, we shall surrender her to you 
without a stain upon her honor, boundless in prosperity, in- 
calculable in her strength, the wonder and the admiration of 
the world. Time will show what you will make of her ; but 
AC time can ever diminish our glory or your responsibility. 



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